Letter handwritten and signed by R. "Baruch Dov Leibowitz, dean of the Slabodka Beit Yizchak yeshiva in Vilna". Vilna (Vilnius), Adar 1925.
Addressed to R. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook in Jerusalem - "To his honor, the great Torah scholar… R. Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen", the letter contains a request to obtain immigration certificates for four students who needed to travel urgently, for life-threatening reasons (during that period, new conscription decrees came into effect in Poland and Lithuania, threatening the yeshivot, and in its wake the Slabodka yeshiva in Hebron was founded. These decrees were annulled in the end of the summer, 1925).
R. Baruch Dov (Ber) Leibowitz (1864-1939), author of Birkat Shmuel was a leading disseminator of Torah in his generation. He was a disciple of R. Chaim of Brisk in the Volozhin yeshiva and son-in-law of R. Avraham Yitzchak Zimmerman Rabbi of Halusk. After the latter relocated to Kremenchug to serve as rabbi there, R. Baruch Ber succeeded him as rabbi of Halusk and established a yeshiva there. After 13 years, he was invited to serve as dean of the Knesset Beit Yitzchak yeshiva in Slabodka. During WWI, he wandered with the yeshiva to Minsk, Kremenchug and Vilna, finally establishing it in Kamenitz (Kamyanyets). He authored Birkat Shmuel on Talmudic topics. His orally transmitted and written teachings are the basis of in-depth, yeshiva study.
This letter dates from the period the yeshiva spent in Vilna, before relocating to Kamenitz, and the foot of the letter bears the (rare) stamps of R. Baruch Ber from that period.
[1] leaf. 22.5 cm. Good condition. Folding marks and filing holes.